Julie Seal says AI could make five John Lewis Christmas ads for under £100k each

Julie Seal, founder of creative production company Republic of Imagination, argues that AI could change the way next year’s John Lewis Christmas ad is produced, and has set out five alternative scripts she reckons could each be produced in about four weeks for less than £100k.

Her company explores where AI, advertising and human creativity meet. Seal wrote the piece after this year’s John Lewis ad arrived to front-page headlines about wokery, arguments on talk shows and hot takes from all sides.

Her central question is whether the story makes viewers want to give someone a present. She cites research suggesting the gifting message is not necessarily landing, with only 12% of viewers spontaneously mentioning gifting when asked to sum up the campaign.

Sympathy for the creative teams

Seal says she mainly feels for the creative teams behind the ad. She expects many people were involved, from creatives, creative directors and strategists to account teams and clients, all working on a high-stakes brief with the whole country waiting for the reveal.

She is confident that some early concepts and scripts were brilliant, but suspects the finished ad reflects a great many voices, opinions and anxieties. “That’s how the agency system still tends to work,” she writes. She adds that 20 years of John Lewis Christmas ads is a considerable legacy to follow.

Seal suggests the ad may have too many ingredients: a magical sleigh that turns into a tuk-tuk, a talking dog with a Cockney accent modelled on a toddler’s toy, a slightly forbidding granny and a final scene of baffling presents.

Cutting a three-minute story down to 60 and 30 seconds while keeping its emotional logic is hard in itself, she says, and the posh, opulent tone feels different during a cost-of-living squeeze.

Seal stresses that she has “enormous sympathy for the people who made it”, expects millions will love the ad and hopes the team is proud of their work.

She also points to System1 testing which found that 69% of viewers responded positively, suggesting the response within the industry and that of the audience may differ.

Five alternative scripts

In what she calls a “build, don’t break” spirit, Seal and a couple of her directors spent a lunchtime coming up with five other ads that she reckons AI-assisted production could deliver in roughly four weeks, at under £100k apiece.

That figure does not cover image rights or any hybrid shoot needed to feature Dame Kristin Scott Thomas. One of the directors, Nick, put together a rough scene sketch in about 20 minutes.

Each script keeps Gloria at its centre and finds its own route back to the campaign’s central thought, “Don’t Give Up on Giving”.

In The Christmas Department, Gloria is hunting for one last, especially tricky present. In the John Lewis store she opens a beautiful retro fridge to find a mysterious doorway, accepts a martini from a white-gloved waiter and steps into an extraordinary realm of impossible departments, winding staircases, never-ending corridors and doors that grow and shrink.

She moves through departments called “People Who Already Have Everything”, “People Who Don’t Want Anything (But Really Do)” and “The Utterly Unbuyable For”, unconvinced by each, until a tiny door leads to “The Actually Important Things”, where something peculiar makes her smile.

On Christmas morning, amid children ripping open presents, the recipient turns out to be Gloria’s elderly terrier, who has spent years stealing her favourite armchair. He unwraps a miniature version of it with matching velvet upholstery and settles in beside her. Gloria raises her glass: “Finally. Someone with taste.”

The Last One centres on Gloria’s daughter, a single mum who has slowly ended up in charge of making Christmas work for the whole family, from shopping, wrapping and cooking to constant demands for snacks, lost shoes and batteries. As the demands pile up she magically fades from view, and only Gloria notices.

At John Lewis, Gloria finds a luxurious silk dressing gown, the kind of treat her daughter would never buy for herself. On Christmas morning she stops her daughter mid-rush and hands over the parcel: “This one’s for you.” As Mum puts the gown on, she gradually comes back into focus.

When one of the children calls for help, Gloria steps in: “I’m sure you can manage, darling.” She settles her daughter in the comfiest chair with a drink, and the children clamber up for a cuddle.

In Just Like You, Gloria’s eight-year-old granddaughter copies everything about her elegant grandmother, from the crossed legs and handbags to the raised eyebrows and her disdainful “Darling”, and at times their reflections magically move in sync. The girl has her own style too, favouring huge monster slippers and a silly unicorn hat with floppy ears.

Gloria buys something unseen at John Lewis. On Christmas morning her granddaughter finds her in her silk dressing gown, but also in the same monster slippers and unicorn hat. “What?” Gloria asks. The two sit together, their reflections matched in the window, but this time it is the grandmother who has chosen to copy the child.

Room for More finds Gloria’s daughter, recently separated, living back at home with her two children. The house is overflowing, the children are sleeping in their mum’s room and she keeps apologising for the mess. Clearing her neglected attic, Gloria sees the space magically transform into what it could become.

She goes on a thrifty shopping trip for secondhand furniture, paint and finds from charity shops and bargain stores, then visits John Lewis for bedding and finishing touches. On Christmas Eve the children discover their own bedroom under the eaves, with proper beds and shelves for their toys. One asks: “Can we paint the ceiling?” Gloria looks horrified, then replies: “What colour?”

The museum of very important things features a granddaughter who collects random rubbish rather than toys, including stones, feathers, bottle tops and dead beetles, which Gloria keeps finding in her handbag, her shoes and the fridge. One evening the objects come to life and arrange themselves into a tiny museum, and Gloria starts to see them as her granddaughter does.

At John Lewis she buys a small cabinet with dozens of tiny drawers and labels each one by hand, with names such as “Extremely Important Stones”, “Probably Dragon Related” and “Unidentified Creatures”. The top drawer, “Most Precious Thing of All”, is empty until the girl places a slightly grubby feather inside. Gloria nods: “Excellent choice.”

Why make five

Seal admits the scripts are not perfect. They were thought up over lunch and would need work with the people responsible for making them, which she says is the point.

She argues that AI-assisted production allows creative teams to sketch, test and iterate ideas together much earlier, exploring an idea “before everyone falls in love with a single expensive execution”.

John Lewis has spent years building a reputation for thoughtful gifting, she says, and the scripts simply try five different ways of putting that message across. With some marketers asking if this year’s ad fully exploits the commercial opportunity, she suggests there may be scope for more experimentation in the creative, possibly even while a campaign is running.

Seal stresses that the technology does not choose which story gets made. “People still have to argue about the characters, find the emotion, make the choices and take responsibility for the work,” she writes. AI can, she argues, give those people a wider choice of ideas and more freedom to test what works.

“For me, that’s a far more interesting conversation than whether the nation likes this year’s talking dog,” she adds.